It’s rare to read a book about politics and be actually excited to get back to it, like you’re on holiday and lost in a novel; but that’s what I felt with How We Invented Freedom & Why It Matters, Daniel Hannan’s account of the development of English law and politics. But then again, I am quite weird.
The book begins with Hannan’s native Peru, and his father’s farm being threatened by a mob during one of that country’s various periods of political instability. Although a Hispanophile (and Francophone), Hannan goes on to explain why those of us in Britain, the United States and the other Anglosphere nations should be so grateful to live with the English system of law.
The cornerstone of that system is the Magna Carta, a document that some rebellious barons forced on King John in 1215, and which became established as the basis of English liberties over the next four centuries (although John, true to form, had reneged on his promises before his little lamented death).
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